On cover, NY Daily News calls NRA chief a 'terrorist' waging 'sick gun jihad on America'
The New York Daily News is on a roll, and they don't care if you don't like it. After provocatively slamming Republican presidential candidates on Thursday's front page for offering "prayers" for the victims of the San Bernardino mass shooting instead of gun laws that might prevent the next one, the Daily News focused Friday's front page on the "long list of psychos" that alleged San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook joined. Enabling those killers, the newspaper said, is "terrorist" NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre:
1st look at Friday's Page 1… MASS MURDER MADE EASY https://t.co/vvmLcF6aJl MASSACRE MISSION https://t.co/IlDcIZeAds pic.twitter.com/tyMEZpwMP1
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 4, 2015
The cover page is not just a hit at LaPierre and the NRA. It also labels several white mass shooters as terrorists, presumably making the case that not just Muslims commit acts of terrorism in the U.S. But the Daily News blames LaPierre and his organization for killing "countless gun laws" — a point the NRA would be happy to endorse — and condemns "the NRA's sick gun jihad against America in the name of profit." In a tweet posted an hour later, the Daily News taunted LaPierre for avoiding the newspaper:
DAY 16: @NRA boss still ducking The News after latest mass shooting in #SanBernardino https://t.co/xM3ZpqhA8A pic.twitter.com/gMxoYnKTN6
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 4, 2015
LaPierre probably isn't bothered by being called a chicken. And as the Daily News points out inside the paper, gun manufacturers and retailers don't appear to be that upset by the focus on gun control, either, openly discussing (at closed-door industry events) how their sales go "vertical" whenever there's a mass shooting. "You can see after a tragedy, there's also a lot of buying," Jeff Buchanan, CFO of Smith & Wesson, reportedly said two years ago, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.